Braided Cinnamon Roll Bread

Happy Monday! I guess by the time most of you read this it will actually be Tuesday, so happy Tuesday too :) As usual, I was sad to go back to work today after a nice weekend at home. I FINALLY finished peeling wallpaper this weekend and can now get to work on repairing the walls and prepping for paint. I also bought an online cake course that I started watching this weekend that shows new, better ways to cover cakes with fondant. It's been great so far and I'm looking forward to using some of these techniques for a St. Pat's cake for our potluck at work this Friday! I didn't do any baking this weekend, but I did do some baking two weekends ago that I want to share with you now. One of the things I made was this braided cinnamon roll bread. I've been wanting to make a sweet version of the Braided Pesto Bread for a long time now so I finally decided to do it. The process was basically the same as the pesto bread, but I made a couple changes to the recipe. The end result was great! It tasted kind of like a king cake and Joe and I ate pretty much all of it in 2 days. It is best served warm but if you're impatient like me, room temperature is great too :)

Braided Cinnamon Roll Bread
Adapted from Braided Pesto Bread from "Confections of a Foodie Bride"

For the bread:
1 c. warm water
2 t. active dry yeast
2 1/2 c. flour
1 T. vegetable oil
2 T. honey
1 t. salt

For the filling:
4 T. butter, melted
3/4 c. brown sugar
2 t. cinnamon

For the glaze:
1 c. powdered sugar
1 T. milk
1 T. coffee
1/2 t. vanilla

- Pour the warm water into the bowl of your stand mixer or into a medium bowl and sprinkle the yeast over the water. Let that sit for about 10 minutes (it may take more) until the yeast bubbles up and becomes frothy. If that doesn't happen, then the yeast is no good and you need new yeast.

- Add the flour, oil, honey and salt to the yeast mixture and begin mix with the dough hook until the dough is smooth and elastic and pulls away from the side of the bowl. If kneading by hand, stir the mixture first then dump the dough onto a floured surface and knead until smooth.

- Place the dough in a bowl coated with a little oil and cover with a towel. Let rise in a warm place until doubled in size, about an hour.

- Once the dough is risen, preheat your oven to 425 degrees and dust your work surface with flour for rolling the dough. If you have parchment paper it is good to roll the dough out on that. But still dust it with flour.

- Place the dough on the parchment paper and start rolling into a rectangle shape that is roughly 12" x 18".

- Melt the butter for the filling in a small bowl then brush or pour the butter over the rolled dough and spread it evenly leaving about an inch border around the edges.

- Mix the brown sugar and cinnamon together in a bowl and sprinkle over the melted butter on the dough. Leave a border around the edge.

- Tightly roll the dough into a long cylinder.

- Using a sharp knife or a bench scraper, cut the dough length wise. Then carefully twist the two pieces together into a rope. I had a bit of a hard time twisting this bread. I think it was because I rolled the dough much thinner than the first time.

- Carefully form the braided bread into a ring and pinch the ends together. You can then trim the excess parchment paper if needed. Slide the parchment paper onto a baking sheet and allow the bread to rest for another 15-20 minutes to rise again. * I made the mistake of sliding my bread onto the back side of a baking sheet, but then the butter sugar mixture leaked out during baking and onto the bottom of the oven, so be sure to put it on a cookie sheet that has a rim. *

- Bake for 25 minutes until golden brown. Let sit for a 10-15 minutes before mixing up the glaze.

Maybe I used too much filling? No, not possible :)

- Mix the glaze ingredients together and slowly pour over the finished bread. Enjoy!

This really was delicious and I wish I had some right now! Maybe I'll make it again this weekend :) I'm trying to think of other variations to make. Let me know if you have any suggestions!

I've still got a few backlogged posts to get out on here, but my nights might be busy with this St. Pat's cake for Friday so we'll see if I get anything written. Thanks for reading and have a great night!